Liger Zero: Mythical Silver Beast
thumb|right|160px|The game's title screen Overview Liger Zero: Mythical Silver Beast (白銀の獣機神　ライガーゼロ shirogane no juukishin raigā zero) is a Zoids Game Boy Color game originally released in June of 2001. Being a true Color game, it does not play in the original Game Boy, and features fairly decent graphics for a tie-in game of the era. Like Genobreaker Story, Silver Zero was never released outside Japan, and the menus are entirely in kana, though a fan-translated ROM with (only) the menus translated exists. More uniquely, it features entirely original characters and setting: it tells the story of Alster, Palty, and Solid, and the silvery-white Liger Zero is not related to Bit Cloud's (or any other). These characters later show up in parts of the Zoids Saga series. Gameplay Combat is turn-based and one on one, with the player taking their team of three chosen Zoids against enemies one at a time. Random encounters are always single Zoids, bosses may be single Zoids or come with a couple accompanying Zoids they must defeat first. The fights themselves feature both cutaway animations (with unique ones for any Zoids with a special attack) and animations of an attack hitting the target Zoid, both of which can be turned off. thumb|right|160px|Scoring a hit on the BF Weapons and customization are extremely simple: a Zoid has a few slots for parts, and all parts work the same on all Zoids. There's a few size restrictions, but they're not very common. You have your choice of four preset color schemes per Zoid, and an oddly high number of them contain pink/purple color schemes. Stats are split between melee, laser/beam, and solid shell/explosive weapons, with each Zoid having attack and defense for both. These can all be raised to a max of 255 with the use of items, meaning any Zoid can be very powerful if trained (though some have farther to go than others). Notably for a Zoids game, melee weapons other than special attacks are unable to hit flying Zoids from the ground. thumb|left|160px|Color select screen for Gojulas the Ogre showing pink/purple option The game itself consists mostly of adventuring around an overworld map and exploring various caves and ruins. Each of the ruins for the Liger armors features progressively trickier puzzles, mostly of logic and guesswork, and while the Panzer's keycard portion requires reading passwords in kana (or else luck), none of them are particularly daunting or intimidating. Characters right|thumb|200px|left|Official character profiles and art. Alster Solid Palty Village Chief Palty's unnamed grandfather, he's the guy in charge of keeping the "Mythical Silver Beast" legend. He also knows much about the world's history, and ends up helping Alster and company work out the true cause of the berserk Zoids. Blue Jem A Republican scientist who moved to the frontier after his pacifist beliefs came in conflict with Zoids, which are used for combat. Blue Jem finds and saves the Zero after the Imperial soldiers first attack it. Blue Jem's database entry in Zoids: Legacy is as follows: :"Zoids technician who saves the main character of Game Boy's Liger Zero: Mythical Silver Beast. Coming from the most far away future in the time-space fused world, he acts as Advisor to the main character." Story thumb|left|160px|Looking out over the subterrain world The story begins in the frontier of the Western Continent, where a Liger Zero, pursued and shot by an Imperial soldier, is rescued by a scientist named Blue Jem. A second soldier, Solid, returns to claim it, and the skirmish attracts the attention of one of the local boys, Alster. He takes the Zero's controls, and he and Solid's Super Geno Saurer fight. As they battle, the ground opens up beneath them, stranding them in a subterrain world. thumb|right|160px|Palty is surprised by the Zero's appearance They argue and part ways, and Alster realizes he's being watched — not by Solid, as he suspects, but by a girl, who identifies his Liger as her world's legendary "Mythical Silver Beast". Introducing herself in a roundabout way as Palty, she drags him off to talk to her grandfather, the village elder. He finds that his Liger is the only Zoid that can scare off the Berserk Fury terrorizing local villages, and the elder explains that it and the rest of the Zoids in the subterrain world have become wild. After a cryptic mention of Hope Tower (as its name suggests, it's a tall tower, stretching nearly to what passes for the subterrain world's sky) and how its doors have mysteriously locked shut, the elder sends Alster and Palty out to some ruins to prove his Liger Zero really is the one their legends talk about. Alster remains sceptical until he finds an old statue of the Zero, complete with Schneider armor that fits his Liger perfectly. thumb|left|160px|Finding the [[Zoids Customise Parts #CP-20 Jager Unit|Jager armor]] The Fury ambushes them outside the ruins, and Solid gets in its way. He loses, and retreats, none too happy about his defeat or Palty's attempts to tell him that the Zero is special. Alster travels back to Palty's village for more information, and then back out to Tone Village to aid them with a berserk Salamander. His Zero can't keep up, and so it travels to a new set of ruins to retrieve theJäger armor. The ruins happen to be hidden in a dangerous valley, but despite the risk, Palty insists on travelling Alster anyway. Eventually, they retrieve the Jäger and are able to defeat the Salamander, Alster heads for Rune Village. The elder thinks he may come close to the surface (and thus get home) by climbing the rocks there, but upon investigation, find the way is blocked by sheer cliffs. When he and Palty ask around for help, the Fury interrupts. So does Solid, who is able to put up a fight this time. He works together with Alster and they drive off the Fury. Afterwards, Solid helps them scale the cliffs with use of a rope, but they find their way blocked by a landslide, making further progress impossible. thumb|left|160px|The Zero leads its human friends to its armor In order to clear this, they decide that they need some kind of heavy artillery, and as such, seek out the third armor unit, called the Panzer. They search for where the third ruins could be, and find them underwater. Alster and Palty go diving and retrieve the unit with puzzle-solving and explosives, while Solid watches the Zero, not attempting to steal it any longer in the name of teamwork. But with the Panzer obtained, Alster finds himself reluctant to just go home. Realising that his Zoid is the "Mythical Silver Beast", he cannot bring himself to abandon the prophecy, and decides to try and stop the Fury, by entering the Hope Tower. thumb|right|160px|The doors to Hope Tower Palty's grandfather finally admits the full story: the Hope Tower is built from the remains of a giant Zoid the people of the subterrain world had constructed, believing it could take them to the surface. Something went wrong, possibly with the AI, and they turned what was left into the tower, giving it the name "Hope" in contrast to the failure it represented. Alster uses the Panzer to break down the doors, and along with Platy and Solid, he battles his way to the control room through swarms of unfriendly Zoids. The AI is indeed to blame: trapped in the tower alone and immobile for years after its initial malfunction, it had gone mad with its inability to reach the skies, and sought instead to destroy the subterrain world. The wild Zoids are its doing, driven mad by its Rare Hertz signals. Solid favors smashing the whole thing so as to halt its hostility, but Alster argues that that approach would be cruel, as it was still "alive", in a way. He keeps trying to talk to the AI system, getting repeatedly shocked by its consoles for his troubles, and eventually convinces it to let him power things down, giving it a chance to rest. Rare Hertz stops, but Alster still has one more problem: the Fury has not become peaceful with the rest of the Zoids, and he has to fight it with the Zero as the legends suggest. After a successful battle though, the Fury appears defeated, dropping deep into the earth it burrowed out from. thumb|left|160px|Back home, Allstar finds out Party plans to stay with him The subterrain world's residents are quite grateful, but Alster would rather not stay to be hailed as a savior — he finds it embarrassing when he was just trying to help out. Palty catches up with him, quite sad about him leaving, and Alster reassures her he can come back and hang out any time. Palty insists on following him and Solid back to the surface anyway, and Alster's not terribly surprised when it turns out she meant to stay with him. As she had said before (and does again), she admits that she likes him. Solid departs for the military, promising he'll get the Liger Zero next time, and Alster and Palty head off to show Blue Jem the Liger's new armors, hoping to surprise him. thumb|right|160px|The Fury seeks the surface too... Deep in the ground, the Fury stirs again, starting a slow climb back to the surface... Available Zoids thumb|right|395px|Exclusive Zoids, shown in order listed here Silver Zero, as the title suggests, features the Liger Zero and its armors. The Zero is the player's main Zoid and must be kept throughout the game, but the Hover Cargo allows for twenty more. Most of the other Zoids are designs from the mid-NJR, and there's a good deal of overlap with /Zero as a result (though no anime customs). There are also a few more obscure windups...and oddly, extremely fast and dangerous Gators. There are, however, a few game-unique designs: * New Tiger, a bulky tiger-type Zoid with blades. * Gojulas 3, a sleek Gojulas that appears to have been based off concept art. * Geno Saurer S, a melee-oriented Geno Saurer with a lot of blades. It along with the Double Sworder S originate from Zoids: Battle World. * Solid's Super Geno Saurer, a Geno Saurer with four long-range cannons and what looks to be boosters. In Saga, it had X-breakers...and by Legacy, he'd replaced it with a Breaker. * Double Sworder S, which has buzzsaws on its pincers. * A form of Berserk Fury sporting a back cannon rather than the "eggbeaters". This is the form the BF appears in until confronted as the final boss, and can be found again in a separate cave after its "true" form has been beaten. * Redler Mk.II, a large dragon Zoid based off the prototype unreleased Zoid originally codenamed "Shooting Star". Additional resources Walkthrough on GameFAQs Summary, profiles, sprites, and a basic items list Japanese review of the game Category:Zoids video games